Fontana: Practice 1 times

Will Power set the pace in the first and only practice session on Friday ahead of qualifying for the MAVTV 500 IZOD IndyCar season finale at the two-mile Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

Power's time of 32.5955s (220.889mph) was 0.1620s faster than Tony Kanaan, with Power's two Penske team mates AJ Allmendinger and Helio Castroneves also in the all-Chevrolet top five at the end of the 90 minute session.

The fastest Honda runner was Castroneves' sole remaining rival for the 2013 IndyCar championship, Ganassi's Scott Dixon, who finished practice in sixth place less than a tenth off the time set by the Brazilian.

The session saw two major incidents, when both Pippa Mann (returning to the cockpit of the Dale Coyne Racing #18) and Takuma Sato (in the #14 AJ Foyt Racing car) both hit the wall at turn 4 and did significant damage to their primary race cars. There were also brief yellows for Josef Newgarden and Sebastien Bourdais slowing on track.

EJ Viso is missing from Fontana this weekend and will be replaced by Carlos Munoz for the race. The Andretti Autosport team said that this was due to illness, although reports from his native Venezuela hinted that crucial sponsorship money might have been delayed and forced him to drop out of the last race of 2013.

Qualifying takes the form of single-car speed trials from 10.15pm BST. The race itself takes place under the floodlights on Saturday night.